


The End of the World As We Know It

by coconutfred



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 02:12:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5398997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coconutfred/pseuds/coconutfred
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world is ending and the gang wants to find Glendower.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the beginning of a fic I may never write, where the Glendower gang are all in Mad Max, and Blue is hanging with the Vuvalini, and everyone hangs out together in a war rig in the middle of the desert.

When Furiosa goes rogue, Gansey runs to Adam first. Ronan is perfectly capable of getting their rig up and running, and Gansey knows Noah will either come along or not; he and Chainsaw can disappear in the walls of the Citadel for weeks without trouble. Adam, though, he doesn't have anywhere else to go if the world starts ending, and the world is most certainly ending. If Immortan can't trust Furiosa, then no one can be trusted, and when no one is trusted, no one is fed either. Adam needs to come with them, to prove to Immortan that they're worth keeping, and to do that, Gansey has to go get him.

Gansey needs to sneak him onto the rig, and he looks incredibly out of place in brown dirt and ragged clothes. Ronan crows cheerfully and clambers over Adam, and when he disappears out the window, he leaves behind streaks of white on Adam's face and clothes, and a gun filled with nails in his hands. Adam turns the gun over and over. There's a lever on the side that he thumbs, and behind him, Noah whispers, "Careful, that's how you set it to blow."

"It explodes?" Adam asks, and then immediately answers himself. "It's Ronan's."

Gansey says, "When we catch up with the rig, make sure Immortan sees you fighting with us."

-

In the end, they don't fight anyone. They're in the back when the pass through the cliff blows - "If you hadn't fuckin' taken so long-" "Shut up, Ronan" - and they end up parked on a small bluff taking turns keeping watch. It's incredibly dull, made only marginally more bearable when Gansey starts telling stories about Glendower. Noah pipes in every once in a while, adding details or corrections. Ronan speaks up more often, adding unhelpful editorial remarks.

Mostly, Adam listens, letting the image of Glendower form and harden in his mind. An oasis, Gansey says, full of green trees and clean blue water ("-as opposed to clean water that's some other color?" "Water's mostly clear, actually." "Yeah, well this water is _blue_ , okay, like the water in Valhalla, and-"), and where guzzaline springs from the Earth in excess, and there are always plenty of bullets, and lizards to eat ("I don't like lizards." "What _do_ you like, Noah? I've never seen you eat shit." "There's plenty of _everything_ to eat."), and you can walk in and out of Valhalla as you please.

Adam doesn't know that he believes in Valhalla. Certainly, as one of the Wretched and not a Warboy, entering through Glendower would be the only way he'd see it.

The nice thing is thinking about how quiet it must be in Glendower, with no one to yell or fight over mud, having Gansey and Ronan and Noah with him, all of them arguing about what color the water was until they died of something that wasn't thirst or disease or hunger, because you didn't have to worry about any of that once you found Glendower.

"Sounds nice," Adam says finally, over Ronan and Noah debating whether snakes really tasted different than lizards. "We're gonna find it, yeah?"

Gansey looks at him, startled. "We- oh. Yeah." He beams at Adam, white teeth under white painted skin. "Yeah, we are gonna find it, together." 

-

They limp back to the Citadel, after, and Chainsaw vouches for Ronan, and Adam makes hopeful, empty handed gestures, and Gansey very carefully doesn't let Ronan say anything at all, and the Wives - no, the Sisters - the Sisters let them back in long enough to refuel.

"Get your stuff," Gansey announces. "All of it; we're not coming back."

"Glendower or the depths of Hell!" Ronan crows, and disappears off with Chainsaw to collect their brother and Ronan's collection of impossible weapons and engine parts. 

Noah vanishes between one breath and the next, off to get belongings or say goodbye or plant an orchard or whatever it is he does when he isn't with them.

Adam doesn't have anything to collect, and Gansey must not either, because they sit together on the top of their rig and watch the water flow. 

"I heard you're looking for Glendower," a voice says, and they look down together. There's a girl standing by their rig, tiny and full of purpose. Her hair is dark and stands up in every direction, and judging by her clothes, she's neither Warboy nor Wretched. When Adam catches her eye, it seems like the din of the Citadel reaches a peak, the world clattering and yelling and clamoring at him all at once. He can hear her voice clearly, even through the din and his busted ear and Gansey's interested inhalation next to him.

The girl grins at them. "I might know a thing or two about it. I'll tell you, if you move over and make room for me up there."

They do, and Adam can see Ronan shoving his way back to them, two tiny war pups clinging to his back, Noah at his side.

"I'm Gansey," Gansey says.

"Blue."


	2. Chapter 2

Blue does not tell her mother before she gets on the war rig with the strange boys she meets at the Citadel. This is because Maura Sargent, daughter of Cass Sargent, head of the Fox Way clan, doesn't need to be told anything, and also because Blue doesn't want to give her the chance to forbid it. As they had ridden in, Maura had taken one look at the bright orange paint of the rig, and the spiky boy driving it with a coyote's smile, and immediately turned to frown prohibitively at her daughter.

Blue is not willing to let herself be prohibited. Furiosa and her girls had been helped to claim their spoils of war, and they were either joining the clan or allowing it to coexist along with their Citadel. Fox Way did not need Blue's assistance to survive, and anyway, Blue's fingers had been itching since the Citadel came into sight.

Blue is the only one of her clan members that is too young to properly remember the Green Place. She'd been a toddler when Maura had chosen to play the odds of the road instead of the harvest, and she remembers the Green Place the same way she remembers dreams. To her, home is the thrum of a bike beneath her and the whispers of her family trading rumors and secrets and promises around her.

It's possible that this new home would have those things as well, but Blue is Maura's daughter, and she'd rather play the odds of the road. She is not ready to crawl into this mountain and declare a hole in the dirt worth keeping.

So, Blue doesn't tell her mother goodbye when she leaves, but she makes sure to catch Calla's eye and salute. Calla would pass the message on.

-

Blue sits with Adam and Gansey and tries to fit the bits of them she can see into what she knows of men.

The men in her life were never there for very long before now, but there have been enough the Blue thinks she has a rather good reckoning of them - men they trade with, and men they fight with, and sometimes, men that ride alongside them before falling back away. Gansey is covered in white paint and decorative scar patterns, and he doesn't look like any of those men. He looks too clean, too collected and put together and proud of it.

Adam, on the other hand, is just as dirty brown as Blue herself is, and his smile is shy and hopeful, just like the men who circle Orla sometimes. When he knows Blue is looking at him, he smiles, and Blue has to fight not to smile back.

When he doesn't realize she's looking, his smile tucks back into his face and he looks just as hungry as Blue feels. Blue looks at his face looking out to the horizon and can read her yearning plainly across it. 

She tears away and her eyes fall to Gansey's hands. His body is still and relaxed everywhere else, but his fingers twitch, over and over.

Blue feels the itch in her own fingers.

These boys are not like the men she knows, but she thinks they may be an awful lot like herself.

-

By contrast, she sees very little of herself in the four people who join the Rig before it departs.

The only other girl is a very small child, introduced as Chainsaw, who seems to communicate entirely by inhuman, wordless screaming. The other child is quiet and sweet, calls himself Matthew and then sits so quietly by himself for so long that Blue becomes uneasy. The only children she's interacted with have been like smaller, louder adults, and she's not sure how to handle these two. 

The spiky coyote boy is Ronan, and the most Blue can tell about him so far is that he makes her want to prove she can be spiky and dangerous too. It's not a defense like it might be with some of the men she's met - she doesn't want to warn Ronan off so much as prove her worth to him. It feels like an audition. She's not sure for what role she's trying out or when she decided she wanted it, but she can't escape the feeling now.

She can escape the cab, however, and she clambers out to crouch on top of the Rig, claiming a desire to keep watch. The safest boy of them all follows her out; Noah, who touches her elbow accidentally on his way out. He's the first of them to touch her, the first man to touch her without permission or retribution. His skin is very cool and it leaves a smear of white behind. 

They crouch together on the roof of the Rig, squinting into the distance. 

Finally, he says "I'm going now," and brushes her side as he scuttles back and down.

Blue shivers.

Her fingers have stopped itching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started re-listening to the audiobook for The Raven Cycle and got inspired.


End file.
